A different way to promote APP: Analysis of the operation strategy of "Youlin"!

The author of this article is Tian Zuo, who has been operating the business for four years. Currently he is the person in charge of the operations of the Ape Tribe APP, with three years of experience in e-commerce platform operations and promotion.

Community O2O has been popular for a long time. There are SF Express, which started with express delivery convenience, Dingdong Community, which started with comprehensive convenience services, and Xiaomei Express, which started with quick shopping in supermarkets and vegetable markets. However, the results are not satisfactory. Today’s protagonist is the “Youlin” APP, which focuses on neighborhood social interaction . The slogan of its official website is “A warm APP.”

Why Neighborhood Social?

The core advantage of community O2O is to gather community members and amplify their value through regional attributes, redefining the supply and distribution of life needs. The giants only use LBS to define distance, and the relationship between users and life services is still a one-to-one transaction where I buy and you sell.

The value of community economy and resource integration is widely recognized, but in reverse, it is valuable because community members and services promote each other and can run on their own. BAT+New Meituan-Dianping are even more capable of decomposing and eroding all life services. The only thing that has not been improved by scale is neighborhood relations.

Therefore, reshaping neighborhood relationships is the first and core element of community O2O.

Social product ideas

The community economy is a complex system that includes material needs, service needs, communication needs, etc. What kind of needs are used to shape neighborhood relationships becomes the core of the product and the core of the project's success or failure.

Look at the functional layout through version iteration records:

From October 2014 to February 2015, the main function was information exchange among community members, displayed through topic feeds. Through the commonality of the region, users can form topics for discussion;

From April 2015 to November 2015, we added and optimized functions such as groups, idle time, studios, and event organization, and explored users’ attributes and commonalities through more dimensions to form more levels of social relationships.

From December 2015 to March 2016, we optimized content sorting, recommendation and search functions, strengthened private messaging functions, etc. Let’s take a look at the latest version of Youlin’s APP mind map and break down the business system:

1) Community topics. Content exchange and display among community members. The content is divided into several types: "Neighborhood help", "Emergency notice", "Casual talk", "Looking for someone to play with", "Idle" and "Rental information". You can browse by post, or by channel based on topic type. The content types cover the social needs of daily life and are also the interactive method with the lowest psychological threshold for users.

b) Discovery. Including offline activities , studios and idle businesses. The purpose is to transform online virtual social relationships into real offline relationships and further strengthen them. It is the core link in reshaping social relationships.

c) Neighbors. In addition to group social relationships, users will gradually develop personal social relationships to varying degrees, including idle transactions and personalized communication needs such as decoration.

iv) Me. Mainly personal information management, business management and settings, etc.

From the overall perspective of the product, the UI is very sophisticated, and the product direction is to focus on content exchange + explore life needs and personal skills, enrich social scenarios and combine personal skills with merchant services, and redefine supply and demand distribution.

In the “Discover” section, there is no hierarchy or focus distinction and everything is basically at the same level. While strengthening key operational businesses, we should also do more to reduce ineffective businesses.

For example, the eight icons in "Discover - Neighbors Weekend", such as "Foodie Canteen" and "Hobbies and Interests", are all empty in an area with a population of 9,500.

Operational strategy analysis

1) Large-scale sweeping ground promotion efficiency

Youlin currently covers two cities, Hangzhou and Beijing. For products with regional characteristics, local promotion is inevitable and the best choice.

There are many mainstream ways of ground promotion, such as door-to-door sales, prize scanning or theme interactions in supermarkets and entertainment venues, community theme activities, and handing out flyers on the streets. Each has its own unique characteristics, efficiency and cost.

In the early days of the APP’s operation, the team cooperated with property management to place “lucky bags” in the community to guide users to download them.

Youlin’s large-scale offline promotion in Hangzhou was from October 2015 to January 2016. Friends in Hangzhou should have encountered it frequently during this period. This can also be supported by the app rankings on the App Store. Before the offline promotion, it was ranked outside the top 300 in the lifestyle category, and rose to 30-50 during the offline promotion.

The ground promotion strategy is to divide Hangzhou into 8 major areas, and cooperate with third-party part-time teams such as Qingtuanshe to offer prizes for scanning codes to download and register in crowded places such as supermarkets and cinemas. Its characteristic is that through high-intensity and concentrated promotion in a single area, the operation of a region can be immediately started on the APP.

Each promotion point is generally composed of three people, with a basic salary of 100 yuan and a commission of 3 yuan per download and registration. The types of prizes vary. The daily effect can be as few as 200-300 and as many as 600-1000. Hangzhou's Binjiang District acquired more than 30,000 users within 2-3 weeks, with an average user cost of 5-7 yuan.

In the absence of commercial subsidies, such promotion costs are generally affordable. At the same time, user activity will vary in different levels depending on the coverage density of the area.

2) Bombardment of Urban Advertising

When launching a city, the goal must be to cover all areas, so local advertising must be of extraordinary significance. It reaches the target users directly.

1. The elevator frame advertisements in residential areas and office buildings are mostly resources owned by Focus Media and are placed on a weekly basis;

2. Production of community public materials, such as "warm reminders", "safety warnings", "road signs" and other materials;

3. Cooperate with local traditional media, such as Hangzhou Traffic 91.8 Radio, Hangzhou Daily, and local new media giants;

4. Light box advertising at bus stops;

5. Cooperate with local libraries, swimming pools and other large public places on promotional materials, such as providing free bookmarks.

The placement of local advertising is characterized by high density per unit time, resulting in ubiquitous multiple impression projections. In addition to the warmth of sentiment, you can also increase the conversion rate by combining convenient services, community activities, consumer discounts and other measures.

3) Misaligned WeChat Official Account Operations

Youlin has two public accounts in operation, one subscription account and one service account, but there is no difference in the operation of the two. They are mainly about reporting on community activities and introducing the stories of community craftsmen. Judging from the average number of readings and the number of fans, the operating results are not ideal. Below, I will sort out my operational ideas based on my personal opinions.

1. Account system planning. Currently, the menus of service accounts are basically web links, graphic messages, etc., which do not bring out the value of the service account at all. At the same time, the two accounts run in parallel, and no operation matrix or differentiation has been formed.

From the product perspective, users need to gather on the APP to establish social relationships, and then explore service needs based on social relationships.

Therefore, the official account does not actually need to provide the same in-depth functions as the APP, or it can embed the web portal of some key businesses through ordinary certified subscription accounts.

Therefore, they can be unified into certified subscription accounts, and through localized operations, or even the establishment of an operation matrix, they can serve as a portal for acquiring and promoting local users. For example, using the official account + local matrix method.

2. Operational positioning. The main content at present is the stories of community craftsmen and community activities. From the perspective of content comparison, the stories of ordinary users in the community are not readable and spreadable, and small gatherings have no attractive effect on publicity.

For example: What’s the point of pushing an activity in a certain community in Beijing to all users in Hangzhou? It will become harassment instead.

The better the social relationship of the product, the less users will pay attention to the official promotional content of the platform.

In terms of positioning, you can refer to the ideas of local accounts and establish a city matrix.

First, integrate city or regional news information that is valuable to users’ lives;

Second, launch local and regional theme activities to increase followers violently;

Third, convert users through targeted needs and activities.

IV) Online operations of small local communities

The first section on the APP, "Lin", is limited to posting and communication among members in the area, including making friends, asking for help, renting houses, etc., which is equivalent to a small localized community.

Let’s think about the significance of local APP communities to users:

First, good local content. It is not limited to the surrounding areas of the community, such as traffic restriction notices, the influx of toxic food in Hangzhou, the G20 temporary residence permit incident, etc., and the smaller the area, the fewer UGCs there are. A bus driver certainly knows more than a cashier at a neighborhood fruit store.

In addition, it is well known that content communities need platforms to guide and create topics, but it is impossible to fully take into account the operating costs and content differences of thousands of independent content communities in different regions.

Second, life services and assistance. You can initiate demands and connect with community members or merchants, the latter of which is also what Youlin will do. It is also a step to enhance user trust and stickiness.

Third, activity platform. Initiate activities, gather interested friends together, discuss topics, have fun, and help each other.

Based on the above requirements, we can sort out the ideas of online operations:

1. Connect the hot topics of the whole city and strengthen the comment function; initiate hot topics or votes, such as the G20 temporary residence permit incident, the G20 holiday incident, recommendations or complaints about chain stores, etc., so that users can participate in contributing to the policies and situations in their area, so that useful information can be shared and disseminated throughout the city.

Classify and organize the content and viewpoints in the same area and output them to enhance the overall sense of the area. The official can issue a complete set of popular policy posts and strengthen the UGC reward mechanism.

2. Discuss the content of the request for help comprehensively. For example, if you want to borrow a charger, it is best to do it within the unit or community; if you want to ask for help to recommend a hot pot restaurant, there is no need to limit the area recommended; as for rental information, I am in District A, but I actually want to move to District B, so I need to look at the rental information in District B.

Is it possible to break through regional restrictions and allow users to freely choose the type of help and region when submitting help information, and then display them in a differentiated manner so that they can get more help. At the same time, we should strengthen the reward mechanism to give users more motivation to provide help and advice. To be honest, even if people lend things to the best of their ability, not many people are willing to take action out of sentiment.

5) Promote activity operations in role classification

We discuss event operations separately because events are not only a part of community functions, but also the focus of Youlin’s overall operations and promotions.

The event initiator is the core figure of the whole process, and there are three types of people: platform neighbors, enthusiasts, and commercial organizations. Let’s look at how these three types of people operate separately.

1. There are neighbors. Since the early promotion stage, Youlin has regarded community activities as one of its key operating methods. In October 2014, the first promotional event of Hangzhou Shuiyin Kangting's "Neighborhood Festival" series of activities was held, and it is currently organized almost every month. From the perspective of cost, the quantity is limited, the population covered is limited, and the types of activities are not rich.

Taking the effects and influence into consideration, multiple communities can be linked together. For example, competition between communities can be through physical rewards or honors from the government or neighborhood committee, which can drive community unity and interaction and achieve a win-win situation. You can also cooperate with local self-media to carry out online activities and publicity.

After the regional launch, the platform will operate on its own and pay more attention to the operations of the latter two roles.

2. Enthusiast. There are many types of enthusiasts, including those interested in chess and card games, pet communication, household activities, gourmet cooking, and industry exchanges. For large-scale platforms, the advantage is not the money and manpower, but the standardized functional support such as traffic distribution, activity process management, member interaction and activity promotion .

Therefore, the operation of the event becomes the operation of enthusiasts, providing enthusiasm through reward recruitment, meeting specific needs, certification marks, enthusiast gatherings, etc., and then providing resource support to enable them to successfully organize the event.

3. Commercial organizations. Commercial organizations can be introduced for parent-child activities, idle transactions, discount services and other activities. They have the ability and motivation to sustain activities, and have the funds and manpower to host interactive events and cooperate with online event promotions, which will make the scale and influence larger.

The key is not the commercial organization itself, but the monitoring of the theme of the event. Most participants will not mind putting up a few roll-up banners on site or who the sponsor is. As long as the event can be carried out lively and there are prizes to be won, it's fine as long as we have fun.

It is possible to attract investment on a large scale, increase registration points, and pay violation deposits, and the platform will review the key links of the activity. Platform staff can monitor on-site or encourage participants to provide feedback.

Old saying again

Looking back, the promotion was remarkable, but the product's business structure and online operation strategy were too simple, and users did not form a community atmosphere and spirit after entering the APP.

For neighbors, in addition to adhering to the neighborhood relationships defined by the area, life needs can be divided in a more in-depth and detailed manner. Normal operations should mobilize the participation of all active roles and reduce "proactive attacks". Ideas determine direction, and products determine success or failure.

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